Delver Magic I: Sanctum's Breach by Jeff Inlo (read novels website .TXT) 📕

“Maybe I do, and maybe I don’t.” With long practiced precision and swiftness, the tracker pulled the bow string fully back and let the second arrow fly. It passed harmlessly into the darkness beyond the range of the firelight. Ryson was a full stride away by the time it passed where he had been standing. The quickest movements of even the fastest humans appeared as slow motion to the delver.

Ryson grunted his disapproval at the pointless attempt. “Let’s hope you know for sure now. I can move faster than you can think. That’s obvious.”

Anger erupted in the face of the tracker. His cheeks turned crimson, noticeable even in the yellow and orange light of the fire. He tossed his bow to the ground and pulled a long hunting knife from a sheath of animal skin at his waist. The blade, nearly as long as Ryson’s forearm, sparkled with sharpness. Chase gripped the brown wooden handle with furious tension.

Ryson laughed a hearty laugh. He kept his eyes on the tracker, but they glistened in enjoyment of the spectacle. “Now you’re just being ridiculous. If I can dodge your arrows, don’t you think I can dodge your pathetic attempts at trying to stab me?”

The tracker grimaced but said nothing.

Ryson allowed his own laughter to subside. He took a deep breath, allowed his mirth to drift back to serious concentration. His muscles tensed ever so slightly, as if preparing to spring upon his foe. Controlled determination filled his form. He glared at the tracker with intensity previously unmatched. Even the tracker with all his hate and prejudice retreated slightly from the scowl.

“I’m not going to waste much more time with you. You said you wanted a word with me.” Ryson’s words tumbled from his mouth in a bitter snarl. “This is your chance. What is it you want?”

Chase sized up the delver’s defiant stand. He decided to press for the scraps of information he desired. “I want to know where ya’ve been and what you’re up to.”

“Why?” Ryson mouthed the one word question as his eyes drove nails into the tracker’s own face.

“It’s a job,” Chase replied with a noncommittal shrug.

Being a delver and accepting commissions from others to explore lands and complete tasks, Ryson understood the tracker’s simple answer. “Who hired you?” he demanded with authority.

“Consprite,” the tracker answered without hesitation.

“Why?” Ryson repeated.

“I don’t know, didn’t ask. Don’t care,” Chase said with finality, making it clear he wouldn’t say anything more of it.

Ryson shook his head with as much disbelief as disgust. “So you just want me to tell you what I’ve been up to? That’s absurd. You’re a tracker. You’ve been following me; you should know where I’ve been.”

Chase grunted a satisfied snort. He found great delight in explaining things to the delver, as if it made him better, smarter than Ryson. “Not exactly. I started only a day ago. I found both of your trails in the trees of Dark Spruce. The older one went off to follow the trail of the tremor. The other was going to lead me to the desert. I’m not a real lover of the forest so I took the fresher one, especially since it would get me out of these cursed trees. Found your trail in the sand pretty easily, but ya know what? Soon as I got started into the Lacobian, I saw you and a lot of others coming back to me. I got out of sight and waited for you to pass. I figured as long as I had you in my sights, I might as well not lose ya.”

“So you decided to follow directly and forget the trail,” Ryson acknowledged. “I still don’t see what you need to know.”

Evan decided to take advantage of the opportunity to throw yet another insult. “Delver’s ain’t too smart, are they? I said I had a job. Consprite wanted me to follow your trail from beginning to end, wanted to know all about where you’ve been and what you’ve been up to. Told me I should follow the trail, but I like to do things my way. Now, I can’t say what ya found when you followed the tremor and what made ya turn back to the desert. I can’t even say what you found out in the desert, but I saw what you had with you. I figured the girl was with you in the forest. I saw signs of two when you first went in. But those other things, I don’t even know what they were, let alone why you were leading ‘em out of the desert. I figure I can get what I need to know out of you. You’ll tell me where you’ve been and what you’ve been up to, won’t ya?”

“And if I don’t?” It was more of a taunt than a question.

Chase’s face turned even brighter with the crimson hue of his emotions, of his hate for delvers. “If you don’t, I’ll cut you a little at a time.” He held the knife threateningly toward his adversary.

Ryson held his laughter in check this time. He pressed the tracker. “That’s not even a threat. I could leave you behind in an instant. I could be out of your sight so fast, you won’t know in what direction I left. As for following my trail, forget it. I won’t leave one. You know it and I know it.”

“I also know something else,” Chase responded belligerently. “I may not be able to pick up your trail, but I can pick up the trail of the girl and those things she’s with. They’re no delvers, they’re careless. I can get what I need to know from them. I know you wouldn’t like that, that’s why you led that hairy mountain monster away from them. Yeah, I saw that thing shag followin’ ya. I picked him up about the same time I saw you come out of the desert. I stayed clear of that thing, but I kept my eyes on what you were doin’. I saw ya set the phony trail to keep him away from your friends there. I won’t follow no fake trail. I’ll go right after ‘em, even if it means followin’ ‘em in the forest. You wouldn’t be at all happy about that, would ya?”

“No, I wouldn’t,” Ryson growled. “So you should know I won’t let you.”

“So how ya gonna stop me?” the tracker responded with a new gleam in his eye. “Ya gonna fight me? If you do I have my chance to cut ya. Or you can run, and I’ll cut the girl.” He paused to enjoy the dilemma he left the delver with, but then made it clear which option he preferred. “Now, I don’t really want to go after those others. I want to hear what you got to say. I want to hear it from you. You’re the one I’m supposed to follow. I want to know what you found while following the quake, what you found in the desert, what those things are that were with you and why you’re bringin’ ‘em out of the desert.” He paused again, and fixed a glance upon the sword at the delver’s side. “I also want ya to hand over that nice sword of yours. It’ll fetch a nice price. Reward me for dealin’ with a filthy delver.”

“I can’t do that,” Ryson said simply.

The tracker offered Ryson the only other option he allowed. “So then you want me to start after the others?”

“I can’t let you do that, either.” As clearly as Mappel’s words over protecting the sword echoed in Ryson’s mind, his acceptance over protecting Holli and the algors rang in his spirit. He would not let this man take his sword or hurt those that had previously traveled with him.

“Then, you’re gonna have to stop me.” The tracker’s smile grew for but a second, then it disappeared completely. He turned to his left with a sharp upheaval of motion. His eyes left the delver as if Ryson had vanished. It was as if something took hold of his mind, forced all knowledge of the delver from his consciousness. Chase’s face now turned white as both hands now gripped the handle of the long dagger, but it was no longer held out at the delver. He stammered at its new target, but no words escaped from his mouth.

She walked into the firelight as softly as a summer’s breeze. Dried twigs refused to snap under her light step as she entered the campsite without making a single sound. She stood but a few paces from the tracker’s left hand side and almost directly across the campsite from Ryson.

Ryson was no doubt as surprised at her emergence as the tracker. He had not sensed her presence at any point during his travels. Indeed, he was not sure he sensed her now. She gave off no scent and still made no sound, but he could not deny his own eyes or the troubled response of the tracker. The delver shaded his eyes from the fire in order to make a closer inspection.

She wore a long dark brown coat which stretched to her ankles. It swirled about her lightly, but the fabric made no noise. It was buttoned up tight to her neck. Her arms hung low in front of her, her hands clasped together at her middle. She wore no rings and no necklace. Short dirty blonde hair hung just above her shoulders. Her face mysteriously avoided the firelight. Only dark green eyes reflected any light at all, and they remained fixed on the tracker.

Ryson stepped to the side, moving the fire away from his path of sight to the stranger. Still, he could not obtain a good view of her face.

“Who are you?” he demanded sternly.

The woman made no acknowledgment. Her stare remained fixed upon the tracker. She stepped, or rather glided towards Evan Chase. Her hands unfolded and reached outward. They grabbed him at the shoulders. Long nails dug into the hides which made his shirt. Ryson believed he could see small stains appear at the end of each finger. She had drawn blood and it seemed to delight even amuse her. As her mouth curled with a tight smile, Ryson saw something else for the first time. Fangs. Fangs in a human mouth.

The woman opened her mouth as she held Evan in an unbreakable grip, a grip as strong as a man’s over twice her size, perhaps a grip like the shag’s. When her mouth opened, the light which avoided her face glistened off the two snow white fangs. She turned her head slightly and pulled the tracker’s left shoulder into her bosom. His neck was within a hand’s span of her mouth.

The tracker found his voice. A soul shrieking howl erupted from his lips. In the last seconds of his life, he plunged the knife into her midsection. He turned the blade back and forth, pressed it ever deeper.

The woman paid no mind. She thrust her head downward and the snow white fangs turned red in Evan Chase’s blood. One single word tattooed itself in Ryson’s mind.

Vampire.

It was nearly inevitable, and not at all surprising. Ryson Acumen would reach a point where he would have to question his own sanity, wonder if he could define the borders between runaway nightmares and reality. Was he now simply walking through the land, half asleep, half awake, but totally immersed in dementia? With each step of the journey, with each new encounter, logical, reasonable thought would demand an examination of this possibility. The delver